Imagine a humid September night in Freetown, Sierra Leone. A 30-year-old woman works alone in an empty office. Her door is kicked in. She is beaten, gang-raped, stabbed, and her neck broken. Another sad tragedy on a continent riddled with rampant disease, genocide, and Western acquiescence right?
Yet this murder most foul has special significance. Just before her death, she was giving a speech on the plight of homosexuals in Africa. She had testified before the UN Commission on Human Rights, and lobbied the government of Sierra Leone on behalf of its repressed LGBT community. She also founded the country's only LGBT organization. She was a courageous pioneer of LGBT rights in Africa; she was FannyAnn Eddy.
As movie producers descend upon the Castro to forever immortalize Harvey Milk in Hollywood pop culture, it is impossible to overlook how far gay rights in America have come, and the cost of those gains. When I first flipped through the pages of The Mayor of Castro Street , I was overcome by how different my experiences have been compared to the police harassment and ultra-conservative social mores homosexuals faced in the 1970s.
Of course there are legal hurdles and bastions of homophobic bigotry in America as some holdouts still believe they can stand in the way of social progress. Yet as the gay community becomes more in vogue and incorporated into the mainstream of American culture, what duty does it owe to those LGBT communities still persecuted throughout the world, such as FannyAnn's?
It is certainly no secret that homophobia runs rampant on the African continent. One needs look no further than the religious and political institutions of Africa. In August 1995, a gay rights group was expelled from the Zimbabwe International Book Fair on the order of President class=storycopy>Mugabe. Although the fair's magnanimous theme was "Human Rights and Justice," Mugabe denounced homosexuals as "sodomists and sexual perverts" who offended "the law of nature and the morals of religious beliefs�."
Indeed, homophobia of this sort is not uncommon in Africa. Similar rhetoric is found in the public statements of the president of Kenya. The deputy attorney general of Uganda announced a renewed effort to prosecute homosexuals. The Tanzanian Anglican Church disaffiliated itself with its American counterpart because of their differing positions on homosexuality.
Currently, about two-thirds of all African countries criminalize homosexuality. Homosexuals driven underground have difficulty seeking AIDS testing and treatment. And even where there is no fear of state prosecution, there is always the possibility of "unofficial" justice. FannyAnn was one example.
Interestingly, Mugabe among others, have attributed homosexuality in Africa to something that was imported by white settlers. This revisionist history, although amusing in an Orwellian sense, is incorrect. Many tribes in Africa were accepting of homosexuality.
Male elders of the Azande, for instance, had "boy wives." What the European colonial powers brought, however, were their penal codes that criminalized homosexuality. These laws remained on the books after independence, reinforcing social norms that homosexuality was somehow wrong - notwithstanding its anthropomorphic nature. It was, simply, an artificial, degenerate social construction.
This highlights the importance of internationalizing gay rights advocacy in America. Indeed, if the legacy of Harvey Milk is to "give 'em hope," perhaps we should not meet FannyAnn's death with apathy. That is of course not to diminish the significant obstacles LGBT individuals in the United States still face, or the excellent work of domestic gay rights advocates. But as the voices of a once dormant movement grow louder, should domestic advocacy be confined only to domestic concerns?
International human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission do shed light on homophobia abroad. However, until a more international perspective and human rights discourse is incorporated into domestic advocacy, the plight of oppressed LGBT individuals abroad may well fall on deaf ears.
No human being should be relegated to a false existence, living in a lie, whether based on their sexual orientation or otherwise. Those who perpetuate intolerance and hatred affect not only those who they directly target, but also reproduce and perpetuate social meanings and attitudes. To the extent homophobia is not confronted, it succeeds, be it in the United States, the Middle East, or Africa.
Aren't we under a moral obligation to be cognizant of the homophobia we have faced by advocating for the same rights of others? Gay rights will never be truly victorious until social attitudes are accepting towards homosexuality throughout the world. To do justice to the legacy of human rights pioneers, such as FannyAnn Eddy, perhaps we should use some of our freedom� to help secure theirs.
Ryan Koslosky is a senior fellow at the University of Florida's Institute for Human Rights, Peace, and Development. He formerly was a law clerk for the High Court of South Africa.